What We're Made Of
by Alan's Only
Summary: Dumbledore in anther one of his.. "ideas" decides there needs to be more of a school unity and a little less house distance. SS LL RW HP FW GW RL GW HG ST DM brief appearance MM AD.
1. Chapter 1

Awakening not in their own rooms, we find the houses in one house...

The sound of thundering footsteps echo through the run-down house, the owner of them not caring how the stairs protested loudly under his boyish weight. Soon Harry found himself in the entrance hall of the large house, a group of people scattered about that room and the next; their heads snapped up to look at him.

"The boy wonder finally decided to join us, I see..." Severus Snape drawled boredly from the chair he sat in. A soft amount of dust from the old chair had settled on his shoulder, bright against the black of his usual robes.

"What are we doing here?" Draco Malfoy complained from his leaning post.

"Now that everyone is awake..." The wispy form of McGonagall appeared, setting a globe of blue light on the table. The second it touched the worn wood, she disappeared.

"What the-" Fred started.

"-Hell?" George continued.

"Well it seems my third eye was right again...danger..." Professor Sybil Trelawny wrung her bony hands as she eyed the globe as if it were her death.

"Hermione!" Ron's voice cried out from the adjoining kitchen.

"Hermione, who had been looking over the books on a far wall, raced into the kitchen. "What is it, Ron? What's wrong?"

"No...no..." Ron muttered from the floor, pointing at the fridge in horror. "...No food..."

"Everybody, please. Come back here so we can see what this is all about." A very tired Remus Lupin called to them, walking closer to the table and picking up the sphere.

The mismatched group of witches and wizards gathered around him in a circle, watching. The orb glowed and lifted from Lupins hand of its own accord, becoming a wispy form of none other than Albus Dumbledore.

"House pride has been getting in the way of school unity at Hogwarts. So I took the liberty of volunteering a few of my teachers and students to help restore this old, neglected muggle building." The image of Dumbledore continued, the unanimous groan of displeasure unheard, "You'll all be staying here five or six days; your belonging have been placed in rooms already, and you'll find all the cleaning supplies you should need in the nook underneath the stairs. The muggles in this town believe this building to be haunted," Dumbledore chuckled, "So they'll be keeping their distance from here. Therefore, the use of your magic should be fine as long as we all remember to know the limit. And no worries, everyone; it's only a silly muggle superstition. Besides, we all know ghosts do us no real harm..."

"Oh goody!" A light voice came from the blonde head emerging from the coat closet, crawling on her knees, large green and pink glasses sparkling. "That will give me more than enough time to look around for the pink-toed bear fae!"

The Dumbledore illusion winked, as if knowingly of Lunas comment, and before disapating into the musty air, "Now that's the spirit."


	2. Chapter 2

The mismatched group went to making themselves as much at home as they could in the musty rooms, the boys bunking in the largest couple of the rooms that were in well enough condition to sleep in, then the three girls to the second largest of the rooms. The three adults each got their own room, Snape's near the boys and Trelawney far, far away from him. She had started to mutter fearfully that her crystal ball had revealed to her that she would be destined to sleep in the same room with Snape.

The first day or two went quickly, starting with the rooms and bathrooms; nothing major. It was not until they had begun working on the kitchen and adjoining dining room that things…started.

"MOMMYY!"

Everyone in the living room turned to see Ron hauling ass out of the large kitchen, face even paler than usual, soapy water dripping from his hands down his arms as he held them out in front of him.

Hermione rolled her eyes. She had on long yellow rubber gloves and was elbow-deep in a bucket of hot, bleachy-smelling suds. "Yes, _Ronald_, we all know there is nothing in the kitchen to eat. Dumbledore will send us something for lunch in a little while. Be _patient_, you pig!" Her voice was exasperated, and she looked up from her place on her knees, where she had been scrubbing the hardwood floor devotedly.

"N-n-n-noo! Not th-that!" Ron looked absolutely horrified as he pointed a dripping, water-wrinkled finger at the kitchen in an ominous manner. "Ghost!"

"Ron," Ginny started in a chiding tone, "Like Dumbledore said...we all know that ghosts aren't all scary and harmful like muggles think!"

"Tell that to that oooooonne!" He hollared, looking quite as if he must've wet himself, as he shook his pointed finger in emphasis, a few soap bubbles falling from it.

Everyone turned, curious to say the least. None of them expected what was crawling in a jerky, disjointed way across the threshhold from the kitchen into the dining room. The man, if you could call him such, most likely was-or more appropriately, _had been_-around his forties, with dark hair that was riddled with shades of gray from age; what should have been a mouth was but an eerie hole, constantly gaping open, as his bottom jaw appeared to have been ripped from his face, hanging on only by a few strands of muscle and tissue at one stretched corner, and dragging and bumping along the cracked stone tiling of the floor. The sound the mauled jaw made was chilling, as would be expected of the sound of bone and dead flesh on chipped stone. Everyone seemed to be frozen in place, some staring in horror at the thing coming towards them, others with a look simply of disbelief. All of the Weasley children had lost what little color they had to begin with, appearing nearly as translucent as what they were observing. Hermione was the closest to it, having been washing the floor in front of the fireplace that was placed against the same wall as that entrance into the kitchen. Everything about this 'man' was morbidly disturbing, of course... But what bothered Hermione the most was his eyes. Or lack thereof, leaving only hollow sockets that were deep voids of red. The kind of red that large quantities of blood turn when it all dries.

Hermione felt as a shudder run down her spine, but didn't realize she had done so. Ginny squeaked and latched both her small, colorless hands around one of Harrys arms. There was a distressed moan followed by weak thump onto the wood floor; the sounds of Trelawny losing conciousness.

"Oh my." Typical of Lupin to sound so calm.

"Wh...what...the bloody hell..._is that thing?_" Draco exclaimed. It would be rather impossible for his peridot-colored eyes to have gotten any wider.


End file.
